Claim: Sen. Obama Walked In On Staffer’s Girlfriend In Bed

According to a claim in his new book due out in February, the former personal aide to Obama, Reggie Love, retells the story of then-Senator Barack Obama walking in on Love’s lady friend who stayed the night in his hotel room.

Using a Secret Service master key to the room, Obama is said to have burst in to go over the day’s schedule with Love, nicknamed “bodyman,” while out on the 2008 campaign trail. Embarrassed upon seeing the woman covered up in the sheets, Obama quickly exited the room.

The excerpt from Love’s upcoming book, Power Forward: My Presidential Education, is quoted at The Washington Post:

I remember the most peremptory of knocks, the sound of his voice talking even as he walked in. … He was charged up, going a mile a minute.

“Hey, Reggie, we need to go over the schedule” – at which point the senator finally noticed my friend in bed, covers pulled to her throat, mortified.

“Oh,” he said. “I apologize.” Then he turned around and hurried out.

“Was that?” she asked, face red.

“Senator Barack Obama,” I said sheepishly.

Love goes on to explain that they all had a laugh about it later on a plane in an attempt to break the tension of a tired and frustrated candidate:

I chimed in from the seat behind him. “You know, sir, if it’s any consolation, I’m having the time of my life.”

And the senator said to me, “Well, Reggie, it’s actually not a consolation to me that my campaign for president can help subsidize your love life.”

“Actually, sir, I got way more action in college.”

It is stated that David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary during Obama’s first term, were especially amused by the alleged exchange.

After this, Love said he found another “bodyman role” around his boss — “court jester.”